Storm Isha: Family lose two days of trip to Lapland due to significant flight disruptions

A family from Co Wexford have lost two days of a trip to Lapland with their two-year-old daughter due to flight disruptions caused by Storm Isha.

Maria O’Sullivan, Richard Warren and their daughter Kerrie (2) were due to fly to Rovaniemi Airport in Lapland for a five-day trip via Liverpool on Monday morning.

However, the couple’s 6am flight to Liverpool from Dublin Airport was cancelled and therefore missed their flight to Lapland.

“We have two days lost in Lapland, we’re going for five days. Monday and Tuesday are gone,” Mr Warren, from Enniscorthy, said on Monday.

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“We’re in no man’s land until Wednesday really. We’ve no flight booked at the moment but we’re hoping to get a direct flight from Dublin to Rovaniemi on Wednesday at 6am.

“We’ll get over there Wednesday morning hopefully and we’ll just have to get cracking, straight into it. Accommodation is costing about €1,000 for the five days. We’ve lost those two nights so we won’t be able to do all of those excursions we were hoping to do, thankfully we didn’t book those so we won’t lose out on those as well.”

[ Storm Isha: ESB warns full restoration of electricity may take days as second storm to hit tomorrow ]

The couple, who were due to travel with Ryanair, were amongst dozens of people affected by cancelled flights at Dublin Airport on Sunday and Monday.

Dublin Airport said a total of 29 flights had been cancelled as of 8.30am on Monday, including 16 arriving flights and 13 departures.

This was in addition to the 166 inbound and outbound flights that were cancelled by airlines on Sunday. Separately, 36 flights opted to divert away from Dublin Airport to other airports on Sunday, while 34 aircraft performed go-arounds.

Mr Warren added: “There is no one telling anyone anything. There are people queuing there [at customer service], some of them are cancellations, some of them aren’t. They don’t know. The people at the desk, of course they’re human, but they don’t really know what’s going on either because there’s so much happening.

“When cancellations happen they have to have someone on the ground communicating what’s going on, there are not enough of them here.”

[ Flight cancelled? Here’s what you can do - and what your airline must do ]

Saima Khan, from Drogheda, who was due to fly to Pakistan via Doha on Monday afternoon to visit family was also among those affected.

“On the way to the airport, I got a notification on my phone, not even an email from the airline, saying the flight was delayed by three hours,” she said.

“I’m going to miss my connecting flight in Doha now as a result, so I’m onto the airline now about my connecting flight to see what options there are.

“They have said the same flight tomorrow has the shortest layover, otherwise it will be a long layover. At the moment it’s looking like I will probably go home and fly tomorrow instead. I’m just hoping there won’t be another storm.

“It’s annoying because you’re scheduling everything, your annual leave is limited so I’m wasting a day and it’s more money spent on taxis.”

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